I also disagree, authors leave left and right because they realize its not as profitable as Steem makes itself appear. You have to remember that Steem's first and most important niche market is the internet's bloggers/vloggers/podcasters and artists of various kinds. Essentially, the key user is the blog owner of a wordpress blog, but Steem is already failing them because the Steem community does not get that they need to focus on this specific customer.
Wordpress bloggers are exactly who you should care about pleasing. This is why Engrave is probably the most under appreciated dark horse project on Steem, they understand the primary user of Steem: wordpress bloggers. This user is willing to buy some SP (not whale levels, but it adds up) in order to build a reputation and presence on Steem and they will be key customers for bid bots, causing an effective circulating internal economy. They build Steem's brand name by association and bring products and services to Steem.
I had a quick look at the Engrave website. It looks pretty interesting. I really think Steem is the land of opportunity. The biggest challenge is to fix the ecosystem to better align rewards with value added.
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